MEMS in sport gains speed

From snowboarding to surfing, MEMS sensors seem to be just at the cusp of breaking big. Romain Lazerand, business development consultant at the motion capture technology company Syride, showed off his firm’s MEMS-enabled Sys-Evo –a lightweight triangular device that slots on to a surfboard to give the surfer data on wave height, speed, ride time, distance paddled, water temperature, calories burned and much more.

While “smart” surfing may seem like a bit of a paradox for a sport well renowned for its laid back participants, Lazerand claims it helps him to become a better athlete.

“It’s helped me become more consistent,” Lazerand said, noting that the data allowed him to adapt his cross training to match his surfing style. “You have to be mentally and physically prepared, and the data I get from the Sys-Evo helps me do that,” he said adding, “I’m not a tech guy, but this is really fricking cool.”

The culmination of five years of research, the Sys-Evo is apparently so lightweight that some surfers have asked if the firm could possibly make it a bit heavier, in order to weigh the nose of the board down more on difficult waves.

Users can also input data pre-surf, like tides from the online tidebooks, which not only help surfer safety, but can also tell the user when the best tide moment will be and where.

The module itself contains a nine-axis accelerometer, gyroscope, compass, and allows for data to be collected both in and out of the water.

“Surfers are big liars, they always want to brag and exaggerate to friends about the height of waves and their performance, but MEMS eliminates that,” explained Lazerand, joking that he’d even tried to hack his device to change the data after several instances of poor personal performance.

Not all surfers are particularly keen to adopt the new technology, however, with Lazerand noting that many were still a little wary of the technology.

“I’ve had the most success with younger kids who love video games and grew up with the availability of data collection,” he said.

Whether the trend will spread or eventually wipe out, however, remains to be seen.

Pretty cool pics @karenlightman!...we are thinking about organizing MEMs panel at emerging technologies conference in July in Vancouver (www.cmoset.com), if anyone is interested pls contact me at kris.iniewski@gmail.com

the MEMS in Sports panel at Sensors in Design was one of the most funnest (yes I wrote that) panels I've moderated; you should check out our pictures from the panel - including me standing next to the surfboard: http://www.flickr.com/photos/50603106@N08/

thank you @docdivakar, you might be right higher volumes will mean lower prices and these devices will become more affordable for the masses...whether the masses will go for it that is another story, my wife bought me a high tech hear monitor which is complicated that only used it once or twice ;-)...my gym training has not improved! Kris

Kris, sports getting expensive... that has been going on for years now. What you will see more are the devices doing multiple sensing functions at a low cost that will increase the affordability of these gadgets from all geographies, developed/developing.
What you will also see with the proliferation of sensors is the popularity of new academic disciplines like Kinesiology that draw from engineering, science, math and biology. So get ready to offer new PhD programs!
MP Divakar